The Demon's Apprentice
by Kytheres
Summary: A deal in the forest lands Dipper as the servant of his most hated enemy, Bill Cipher. For four years he has to go around helping Cipher with his dirty work... But as he continues on with the demon, he discovers that he's developing feelings for him. When the for years are up, is he going to stay with Bill or go back to his awkward life with Mabel, Soos, and Grunkle Stan?
1. Chapter 1

**This is a story for a friend, and I hope they like it! Please enjoy! Feel free to comment! (Comments are awesome!)**

CHAPTER ONE—Betrayal

The day started out as anything but normal. There was a monster in the house, Grunkle Stan's shorts were on fire (don't ask), and Mabel's pet pig Waddles was wondering around in the forest, lost and squealing. Mabel, of course, was out looking for him, and Dipper was set with the task of simultaneously putting out Stan's shorts and getting the monster out.

He tried fanning the fire, and it just ate more of the shorts.

"You'd better get those shorts fixed, because they're my favorite!" Grunkle Stan yelled from the other room. He was watching some romantic comedy he'd seen a thousand times, and every—_every_—time the butler entered the room, he'd fall flat on his face, and Stan would laugh for the next fifteen minutes. Dipper didn't even know Stan _had_ a favorite pair of shorts.

He put the pants in the sink and pulled the handle over all the way, and went to go find that mace and get the giant fanged monster out of the bathroom. He was going to clog the toilet and the sink, and Mabel did that enough as it was.

When he got the door open—with the help of Soos—he stared at the monster in front of the mirror. It had put on all of Mabel's 'make-up' and 'perfume.' It smelled worse than Old Man McGucket on a good day. Which was never. Okay, that was once, and his son had forced him to shower—not without the awkward cat hiss—and then he tackled him and forced him into the shower. _That _was an experience Dipper never wanted to repeat.

After trying a fire extinguisher and the Crotch-U-Later (pun for alligator and Sasquatch and some other thing he honestly didn't ever want to think about), Dipper got the monster out of the bathroom by throwing a foul-smelling bottle of perfume out the window, the monster running after it like an excited puppy.

That was when Mabel came back, totally ignoring the monster and barreling into the house carrying her favorite animal in the world, the pig, Waddles. She exclaimed something and raised him into the air, the large pig snorting and squealing (possibly yelling that it wanted down), and squinted triumphantly at him. (Can people squint triumphantly?)

"Hey, bro-bro!" She looked around the place. "Got the bat out the belfry, I see."

He chuckled hesitantly. "Yeah, Mabel. Got those bats out." _It wasn't even one bat._ _More like a bazillion bats stuck together into some mythical monster that likes the smell of your perfume._ He swung his arm in the air like a weak _yay_.

Grunkle Stan wondered into the room, looking for his shorts. He glanced at Mabel. "Okay, so you found your pig. Now what?" he fished his shorts out of the sink, which had started overflowing. Turning the sink off, he drank more of the Pitt soda.

Mabel smiled that broad, somewhat freaky smile she gave when she was really excited. "Now we're gonna have a party and chug chocolate milkshakes and—"

The normally colorful room burst into grey, and a triangular demon appeared floating in the air. "You're gonna what, Shooting Star?"

Mabel's smile disappeared entirely. "Oh. I forgot about you."

Dipper frowned. "What do you want, Cipher? We've had enough of you!"

The triangle made a face like he was smiling. "Oh, Pine Tree, you have no idea what happened in the forest, do you?" A puff of smoke, and the triangle was now a human, a lemon-yellow tux draped around him, golden hair fluffed up, clean-shaven, with a midnight-black eye-patch, pants, shoes and gloves. The smile was no evident on his face, but that didn't make it any better. A kind of sinister look made it menacing.

The demon threw his hand up into the air and dropped it, a golden cane appearing out of nowhere. He seemed to enjoy the boy's confusion. Mabel looked like she was going to be sick.

Dipper turned to her, a terrified look on his face. "Mabel, what happened in the forest?"

"Oh, nothing," she lied, staring intently at Waddles. "Nothing happened."

"Oh, nothing that doesn't end with you being my servant for the next four years, Pine Tree," the demon replied casually. The boy jumped.

"The next four years?" he turned to his sister. "Mabel, you need to explain something right now! What happened in the forest?"

She looked more sheepish and uncomfortable that seemed possible. "I, uh… Came across a monster eating… eating Waddles…" this time her voice cracked. "And I wanted to save him so bad, he's one of my greatest friends, and I didn't want to loose him, Dipper don't you know what it's like to loose a good friend?"

Dipper's mouth opened a snippet, his eyes wide, his noodle-arms hanging toward the floor. "You did what?"

"I wanted to save him, Dipper! Don't you understand that?"

"So you let me become the evil triangle's servant?" Dipper yelped.

"Ah-ah-ah," the humanified triangle cooed, waving his finger in the air. "She almost sold your soul to me, you know."

Mabel grabbed his vest. "But I didn't!" She said, her face right up in his.

Dipper's face was obscured by his hat. "Yeah, Mabel. That's great."

Mabel pulled away, confused. "Dip, are you all right?"

"Oh, yeah," he answered, "as good as a guy who's been sold out by his sister to an evil demon _can_ get, you know?"

"It's only four years, bro-bro. It's not forever." Ever the optimist.

"Yeah, but do you remember the last time Bill made a deal? _He stole my body!_"

Mabel smiled and punched his arm. "But this time it isn't forever!"

Dipper flinched. "So you aren't sad that you're sending your brother to live with an evil demon for four years?"

"Why would I be worried, Bro-Bro? Its four years. Nothing bad will happen!" But Dipper could tell from her voice that she regretted what had happened.

Something tore at him to make the wound worse. "Well," he said, "maybe I'll become a demon. We'll see what happens, huh, Mabel?"

The demon smiled, opened a portal, and they both stepped through, leaving Mabel with her emotions.


	2. Chapter 2-- Deals and Deadbeats

**As always, feel free to comment! (Because they are awesome!)**

Chapter Two—Deals and Deadbeats

The first thing the demonic triangle noticed about Pine Tree was how he liked walking around in oblong circles._ Really_ liked walking around in oblong circles. _Pacing, Bill, it's called _pacing. Something about the boy's distraught face made it cute. _He's your_ servant, _for crying out loud. You can't fall in love with him! _

But who said it was love? He wasn't in love with the kid! It was only the first day of his imprisonment! He could do so much to pass the time. Depending on when somebody summoned him. This might take a while. Business was slow, lately, so they huge around in the dreamscape of some poor sap's mind.

He had tried escaping, but just ended up 'slamming' into Bill's body (2.3 seconds this time, Mabel took 3.9), and yelled at him to let him go, but seemed to realize that was futile, and calmed down enough to start pacing around the room.

Bill knew what he was thinking—it was hard not to—and laughed at Pine Tree's attempts to free himself. It wasn't going to work. Nothing he had was going to work. He didn't have anything to trade. And he wasn't the type of kid to sell out his sibling. He had kept that thought with what happened at the 'Sock Opera,' that stupid thing that Shooting Star had set up. Puppets were only good if you had the right set. And right now, he couldn't think of a better set to have.

Even if it was just a solo piece, lots of creatures wanted a piece of him.

Pine Tree was his servant, and nobody could have him.

_Are you sure you aren't falling in love with him?_

_I'm positive, Cipher. It isn't happening._

He was talking to himself? This was getting weird. _I'm the epitome of—actually, no, that reward goes to Shooting Star, and I don't think anybody will ever be able to take it from her._

He was bored, and Pine Tree was pacing. Might as well have some fun with him.

He was still in his human form, lounging lazily in the air. They were in the Fears and Broken Memories department of some guy stuck in the schizophrenia ward in Salem, Oregon. This _was_ Salem, wasn't it? Oregon, Massachusetts, what did it matter? Half the time he ended up with China, Russia, or some alleyway in Germany… Or was it Prussia? He didn't remember.

"So, Pine Tree," he moaned sleepily, "what part of his mind should we kill? His hippocampus? His imagination?" Cipher laughed. "This guy barely has one. He was a neurosurgeon with a secondary degree in Mathematics. There is no way this guy has an imagination." Without moving from his spot, he opened a door in the cold grey Dreamscape of his mind, and Bill saw what a terrible imagination the man had.

He almost barfed.

"This guy is sick. And I mean, _really sick_. In the head." He laughed. "Get it, Pine Tree?"

His servant was glaring at a tire swing ten yards away from him.

Cipher noticed his focus, and flew right in front of his face. Dipper, startled, stepped back and slipped on a rock. Cipher laughed. Dipper sat up and glared at him.

"Why did you trick Mabel into giving me over as a servant to you? And why four years?"

Bill laughed. "I didn't trick Mabel into doing anything. She wanted her pig to come back to life. Honestly, I couldn't think of anything that she could gamble to save her precious widdle piggy-wiggly's life, but then she mentioned you and held her hand out."

"She just… thought of me, and struck a deal?"

"Yep." The sound of a telephone ringing stopped them in the conversation, and Bill frowned. "Back to triangle-mode we go, eh, Pine Tree?"

"But I'm not a triangle!"

"No, but you are my servant, and over the next four years, if something doesn't strike me as interesting, you get to step in and strike deals for yourself. Sound like a plan?"

"But… what about my parents?"

"Parents?" Bill scratched his head. "Pine Tree, who cares about parents at a time like this? Usually if somebody's kid gets shipped off to a different country, the parents celebrate and the kid parties."

"I'm not in a different country."

Bill snapped his fingers and left the Dreamscape to disappear back into reality. Laughing, he answered, "Kid, when you're with me, you're in a whole other _universe."_

The man looked awful. And he smelled even worse. He had everything set up the right way. The book in front of him looked rather similar to Pine Tree's journal. Of course, he knew why. It's not like the only people that knew about him were in Gravity Falls.

They were in the coldest climate in the world—Russia, near the top—on the tundra. Pine Tree shivered. The man's eyes widened when he saw the kid, but his mouth dropped when he saw Bill. He looked terrified, as all people in their right mind should. The blue journal rested against a rock, the wind leafing through the pages.

As always, the environment was a somber grey.

"You… You are Cipher?"

He had a vague Russian accent, like he had been away from his native country and slowly lost the accent. It sounded more… Eastern. Bill didn't want to go into details.

"Yes, Aloyoshenka. What do you want?"

The man looked uncertain. "I want…" He started out strong, but his voice simmered out, like fire dumped on a fire that was trying to breathe. It wasn't getting anywhere. But Bill could wait. Pine Tree, on the other hand, was freezing.

_So? Let him freeze. This is business. _But he looks so cold… _I don't want to break my toy on the _first day, _do I?_

Cipher snapped his fingers, and Pine Tree was encased in a thick brown-leather coat with wolf-fur on the inside. _That was a coat I haven't used in a while. If I'm going to have an _assistance _and/or_ servant,_ he's going to have to be as sharply dressed as me. _

He has to keep the hat though. And not _completely_ as sharp.

Aloyoshenka jumped at the sudden change. His accent returned full force. "I vant to make a proposition vith you."

"Obviously, friend. Why else did you call me?" Though he was still floating in the air, he stood up and conjured up his midnight black cane. "Now," he continued, fixing his black bowtie, "what would you like from me?"

"I want the KGB to get off my back."

"They aren't on your back," Pine Tree interrupted, gaining an annoyed look from Cipher. He shifted, uncomfortably. "Not literally, anyway."

Aloyoshenka started at Pine Tree for a second, and then turned to Bill. "I want them to stop looking for me."

Bill smiled. "Seems fair enough." He held out his hand and blue fire enveloped it.

The Russian man shook. "Now what?"

From his expression, Dipper could tell that Cipher was smiling.

"Oh, that's easy." He took something out of nowhere, and stuck it up to the Russian man's head. "Now you die."

A shot rang out in the cold Russian tundra, and all traces of Pine Tree and Cipher being there disappeared.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three—No Complaints

"You are a sick and twisted _monster!_" Dipper exclaimed when they got back to the U.S. From what Dipper saw, they were somewhere around Washington state.

Cipher growled playfully. "Aw, look at me! I'm such a monster!"

"Stop playing and take this seriously!"

"Do I have to?"

"…" Dipper couldn't honestly come up with a response to that. The demon was back to his human state, and it was driving Dipper up the wall since they got there. No wonder the journal had said not to—_the journal!_ If he was with Cipher for four years that meant that he'd have to bend to his every whim, and if he got all the journals together, he could release hell on earth! Was that what he had been planning?

"Oh, don't worry about it, Pine Tree. You don't have the journal because you left it back at your place in Oregon. It's perfectly safe there."

"You mean you won't try to possess me and go back and try to steal it from Mabel and Grunkle Stan?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die."

"Your deals don't work like that, Cipher."

"Of course they don't, otherwise they'd be so easily broken." He smiled easily, but in this muted darkness, it looked sinister. Dipper shivered.

"Shake on it?"

"What, did you want to kiss on it like some other demons do?"

"What? That's disgusting!"

Cipher shrugged. "It's just how they do things. Not that I'm really the type for kissing."

Dipper shivered. "I'd never kiss you."

Bill smiled. "Of course you wouldn't. You're all for that Corduroy girl, aren't you? Wendy, the daughter of that freak with an axe?"

When Dipper shifted uncomfortably, Cipher knew he'd touched a soft nerve with Pine Tree. "Oh, you'll be fine. It's young love. Like a worse version than Romeo and what's-her-name. It's based on a real story, you know. Plus, Shakespeare was actually a woman dressed up like a man." He rolled his eyes. "It's all very complicated and annoying. Personally, I don't like to think about those times."

Dipper folded his arms. "So, now what? You just killed a man."

"Did you think this was just fun and games? I have to wait to get summoned sometimes, before I go and destroy the universe. After the first time I get summoned to a new place, I can go there anytime I want." Bill laughed. "After a while, everything gets to be fun and games, Pine Tree. Playing with people's minds is the greatest game ever played."


	4. Chapter 4--Feelings

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Chapter Four—Feelings

_Several months after_

Dipper felt like an idiot in his dapper midnight black tux, the coat tails trailing after him like a malevolent ghost. His white gloves made him feel like a waiter, his shiny midnight black shoes clacking against the cobblestones. They were in England, and Dipper's face was bright red in embarrassment in contrast to the cool night. He slipped inside a white apartment building and walked calmly up the stairs. No one noticed him. He was like Bill now—nobody noticed him unless they summoned him or he wanted them to notice him. He could snap his fingers and somebody would disappear. He could make deals with people—smaller, less dangerous deals with people. Bill had taught Dipper how to make the deals, what was required—"Make sure to freak them out, at least a little, okay, Pine Tree?"—and how to break off a deal if it didn't go how he wanted it to.

But now he was back to helping Bill, back to being the manservant until he could master this next new thing. What was he going to learn this time?

He walked up to the pure black door, yellow lines crisscrossing the hard, non-earthen surface. Knocking three times, waiting six seconds, and then tapping "I'm a little Teapot" as fast as he could, he felt the jerk of the door right as he finished. Cipher was at the door, in human form again. He looked at Dipper with a smile and undid the bolt.

"Hello, Pine Tree."

"Hello, Bill."

Cipher let his apprentice in the room, not at all surprised that he had come early. Again.

The room was completely dark except for several candles in the middle of the floor, a pale blue light emitted from each. Some sort of ritual was written on the floor in what looked like blood—Dipper knew it was just there to freak him out; Cipher didn't need ritualistic symbols to do what he needed.

But there was something out of place. More like, _someone._

There was a woman kneeling on the floor, chanting in some obscure language. She didn't look up; she didn't flinch as Cipher slammed the door shut. It was as if either she didn't realize he was there, or she was too busy… meditating? Chanting? Dipper didn't know what she was doing, who she was, what she did…

"She's another demon, Pine Tree."

_Oh, is that all?_ "Okay. What's her name?"

The woman's eyes opened, wide and almond-shaped. She pulled off her black hood, eerily red-purple hair tumbling down in long straight lines from her pony-tail. She had a purple outfit on, like something a mediator would wear. An airy lavender shirt with long sleeves and a squared-off collar, like a Reverend's, stood stiff. A darker purple vest stood stiff around her thin frame. Nothing about her was delicate. She looked like she could take someone out with a swift move to their solar plexus. Puffy plum-colored pants fit her legs, and black boots wrapped around her calves. Knee-high socks with silver skull-and-crossbones peeked out from her boots.

Dipper frowned at her, not looking at all impressed. He'd seen more interesting, more impressive things during his servitude with Bill.

"Her name is Phereniki, Pine Tree. Treat her with respect." Bill seemed to act normal around her—as normal as any demon could be around another demon.

Dipper's frown deepened. "What is she doing here?"

Phereniki smiled at him. "Unimpressed, huh? Just how many other demons have you seen?"

Bill rolled his eyes. "Please don't ask him that—"

"Two-hundred-ninety-three," Dipper answered, somehow proud of his answer.

In a second, the girl pressed him up to the wall, a knife suddenly in her hand, the blade midnight black, the handle blood red. It was pressed up against his neck the girl's eyes narrowing into slits like a cat. Dipper smirked.

"You really think I haven't been threatened before? Even if I die, I'll still have to work for Bill, so it's not going to matter."

"So you don't miss your sister, then?" Phereniki thought she had hit a nerve, but Dipper's smile made her queasy, afraid that she had even asked the question.

"Oh, it's not my big sister you need to worry about."

"'Big sister'?" She scoffed, looking at Bill. "They're twins."

Dipper thrust his hand up, ripping the knife from her grasp, twirled her around, and held the knife above her heart, ready to break skin if he had to. "She's five minutes older than me, demon. It's not like it matters."

He thrust the knife away and backed off, wondering over to a mirror set into a wall. He simply willed the wood in the fireplace to burn, and it started up, flaring black and red.

Bill's eye closed, and he sighed, not sure if he was angry or not. "Phereniki, don't kill him. He's had a rough day—"

"And you would know about my rough day?" Dipper's face contorted and he squinted menacingly at his Master. "Actually, you would. You're 'all-knowing,' after all."

Bill rolled his eye, knowing what his servant looked like, knowing how upset he was that nothing was going right. He just wanted to get back home to his normal life in Piedmont, California, and he hadn't set foot there, or in Gravity Falls for the last six months. Most of his time was spent in alternate dimensions with his Reverse-Self and Reverse-Gideon—an experience he, obviously, never wanted to repeat. His other time was spent sealing deals that Bill personally didn't want to go to or deal with, so Dipper had to make sure he knew all the correct spells and how to make a deal stand.

Dipper was getting tired of his new job fast.

He wanted to go back to hunting for monsters in the seemingly never-ending forests of Gravity Falls, Oregon, and he wanted to do it quick. He wanted to get out his midnight black suit. He hadn't kept the pine-tree hat.

Bill smiled. "You know what, Pine Tree. I know what would make you feel better."

"Yeah?" Dipper replied, disbelieving. "And what would that be? Another pat on the back or slap in the face for mispronouncing a spell?"

Bill smiled sadly, which immediately made Dipper curious. Whatever made a heinous demon like Bill sad had to be bad news… or good news, depending on the way you look at it.

A ball of blue fire wafted up from Bill's hand, and a white-and-blue trucker hat appeared, a blue pine tree printed on the front. Dipper stared at the hat. He hadn't seen it in so long it felt like forever. Grasping the hat gingerly, like taking Waddles from Mabel's sleepy hands so she wouldn't suffocate the pig while she slept, he looked at it, finally putting it on his head.

He seemed to divert back to his old self, looking half awake and sleep deprived.

Phereniki's face fell a little. Like looking at a puppy for the second time and realizing that it was just a harmless little puppy that was trying to protect itself, her eyes softened.

It had been a long time since they'd done that.

"Would you like…" Bill said softly, "…to go visit them tonight? Just for a little while?"

Dipper's face, obscured by his hair and his hat, nodded. He realized what day it was. He let out a little breath, which rattled unequally, his eyes nearly brimming with tears.

One streamed down his face, and Phereniki knew what the kid felt like. He was only a boy and it was his first Christmas away from home. He was twelve, and he was the servant of a demon, and everything was going crappy for him, plus his first response to anyone he didn't know—demon-wise—was to bite back.

She was used to that sort of thing. She'd had a deal with some guy that asked her to let him be her life-long servant just so his girlfriend would live. She brought the girl back to life, and then they had an argument and… Long-story short, when things like this happen, nothing good is going to come out of it.

She frowned, looking at the crying boy. "You know what, big guy," she said, a little too enthusiastically, "If you guys make a deal the old-fashioned way, I'll send you back to Gravity Flies—"

"Gravity _Falls_, Phere."

"Gravity Falls, free of charge!"

Dipper looked up at Cipher, concerned. Last time he had asked about old-fashioned demon-deals, the demon said they had to kiss. "Seal it with a kiss" and all that. No way was Dipper going to kiss Bill.

"What are we going to make a deal on, though, Phereniki? I can't break the deal I made with Mabel."

Phereniki nodded. "But you could shorten it." She held a finger up in the air. "Loop-holes, Cipher."

Cipher looked at Dipper. "Um… Okay." He turned toward Dipper. "If you do everything in your power to do what I say and carry everything out in the right way, your time with me with change." His face was bright red, like he wasn't sure that he actually wanted to go through with it.

Phereniki frowned. _You worded that a little weird, big guy. _

Dipper nodded, obviously not caring about the wording.

Phereniki's frown deepened. _Plus,_ she thought, _if he doesn't do what you want him to, you could keep him _longer—

Her thoughts were cut short when Dipper and Bill leaned forward, both bright red in the face. _Thought you would never kiss me, huh, Pine Tree?_ Cipher thought.

Amazingly, the twelve-year-old made the first move. He had grown a few inches in the last few months, so he wasn't _as_ short as he had been. His eyes closed, he gingerly kissed the demon on the mouth. His lips were soft, tasted delicious, eagerly checking out the other's mouth.

Something in his chest pulsed a little faster, and he took Pine Tree into his arms, holding his neck, not letting him go. Something stirred up the air around them and the ground fell out from under their feet. Softly, Dipper landed on something. It was cold and soft. It was a bed. Not wanting to open his eyes or get away from the tender feeling of Bill slowly untying his bowtie, pulling his hat off his head, brushing away his bangs, press his hands against his back…

Cipher pressed his lips deeper into Pine Tree's, confounded by what he was feeling, the fact that he was attracted to this boy…

Suddenly a door opened, a light flicked on, and Dipper and Cipher looked up to see the face of… Mabel. She stared in horror at her brother and his master, the demon. Without warning, Cipher teleported both of them out of the house—Dipper's house—and into a forest, far away.

Dipper looked up at the demon, confused. The forest looked familiar, except it was nighttime. Christmas Eve. It was almost midnight.

There was some snow on the ground, but they didn't care.

Bill Cipher gave Dipper the greatest Christmas present he could ever have.

Mabel was crying into her pillow. "It was just my imagination," she whispered to herself. "Just my imagination…" But they looked so cute together, somehow.

But Bill was a _demon_. Dipper should know better!

But then why did she like the pairing?


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five—Awkwardness

Dipper, as usual, was frustrated. He raised a finger to the sky, pointing, opened his mouth to speak, and then closed his mouth, looked to the ground and started pacing again, nibbling on yet _another_ black pen. The plastic cap was dented were his teeth crushed it, and the end was about to explode ink onto the poor boy. He was having trouble figuring out if what he heard was true. He was having trouble with a lot of things lately.

It was now summer again—almost a year since Mabel had given him up to serve Cipher, and he didn't want to think about what was going on. What _Cipher_ _himself_ had proposed to Dipper. Pacing and nibbling on the pen, his eyebrows dancing across his face like some kind of confused waltz.

"But if that's true, then this… But what happened… And then… But when does… And then… But what if this happened and the other thing doesn't? And then there's the other thing that revolves around _that_ thing, but then _this_ doesn't happen, and then… But what if that happens? Is the other stuff still going to? But what about that other thing? What about the first thing?" He stopped completely, staring at a shy tuft of grass, and started talking to it, bouncing back and forth motions and ideas with the piece of grass.

He had his typical uniform back on, not the dapper midnight tux he'd had on several months ago. Cipher had decided that he looked to… _"_Formal" somehow.

He pulled his hat off his head by the visor and started tapping his head with it. He put it back on, and tapped the visor with his pen. Suddenly confused, he tapped the piece of grass, which had fallen over in the breeze. Concerned, he lifted it back up with the pen.

After a few seconds, it fell back over. Frowning because of sadness, he went back to pacing, trying to find another patch of grass that would listen to him and not faint.

Cipher, meanwhile, was playing with some grass, sitting down on the ground, one human hand touching his human cheek, looking distraught and annoyed with his servant. Staring down at the piece of grass like it was a bug that wouldn't leave it alone, he was tempted to burn the heart out of the piece of grass, but that would just upset Pine Tree.

Plus, pieces of grass don't have hearts.

Maybe Dipper's random acts of silliness were getting to him.

But lately, Bill didn't think Pine Tree's acts were so much… acts. Maybe he really was going a little coco in the head. Loco moving like a locomotive barreling down the streets of Bat-Person-Ville in a steam car filled with collectable shrunken heads.

Cipher shook his head, clearing the image out of his head. A little. Those shrunken heads, man. Those things were creepy.

If Pine Tree was acting this way, something was wrong.

It was a warm day, the sun smiling in the sky, the ground firm and warm. The forest was around them again, and they were back in the great Gravity Falls forest.

And the reason Pine Tree was freaking out?

Well, that's why they were there.

A few weeks ago, Cipher found out Mabel was coming back to Gravity Falls. He had, of course, told Pine Tree. The boy deflated, remembering the last experience.

Pine Tree being kissed by a human Dorito. He took it amazingly well, but never seemed to want to kiss him again, after that. It seemed like a onetime thing.

_Is it a crime that I want to kiss him again_? Bill thought, twirling the grass more angrily, feeling like he wanted to pluck up the meadow of pansies the forest over and burn them all to ash and scatter them all over the town and laugh maniacally as all the little children screamed and the sky turned blood red…

Dipper stopped and stared at the back of his Master. He was acting more like a depressed sociopath—he wanted to be around a few people, but not the whole human race.

Pine Tree—er, Dipper could relate to that.

Dipper, Pine Tree, Blue, hat, Red, grey. What difference did it make what Cipher called him? _All the difference in the world,_ he told himself. _Mabel has to call me something and I'm sure she doesn't want to call me Pine Tree._

_She could always use your real name._

Dipper frowned. He'd been called 'Pine Tree' so long he'd nearly forgotten he'd had a real name. _But it's Dipper._

_No, it's not, silly Goose. It's—_

His thoughts got cut short when Cipher raised his head and looked back at Pine Tree. "Have you decided yet, Pine Tree?"

"Decided on what?"

Cipher rolled his eye. "On if you're going to visit them or not."

Dipper jumped back in surprise. Or, to Bill, what looked like surprise. Had he forgotten why he was here? What was with that kid?

"Oh. Yeah. Right. The reason. The reason… Um…" He sat in silence for a few seconds… "What was the reason?"

Cipher glared at him, evident concern apparent, but not as apparent as the look of apparent anger on the human Dorito's face. "You came to see Question Mark, Shooting Star, and…" Cipher frowned. "That one other guy. What's his name…? Pac-Man?"

Dipper frowned. "I can't remember his name, but I'm pretty sure it's not Pac-Man."

_You have spent _way_too much time in those alternate realities, Kid. You needa get out more._ Which is why I'm letting you see your family more often.

_Which is probably a good thing._

For your health.

And Safety.

And welfare.

Well, OK. Mental welfare.

You're losing it, Kid.

Pick up the pieces and put 'em back together before you can't find them anymore.

During this mental conversation, Dipper started staring at his fingers and willing them to work, and he seemed fascinated by the idea that he could move his fingers on his own.

This deepened the demon's already growing concern for the 13-year-old.

"Shall we go find the Mystery Shack?"

"The what?"

"Your home, kid."

"Oh. Yeah. Where is it?"

"Let's walk there. We'll find it." _Eventually_.

_I'm not even eating his mind and he's still losing it. This is…_ kind of terrifying.

Cipher started walking one way and Pine Tree walked the other. Cipher stopped, turned Pine Tree around, and walked him back to his 'house.'

When Pine Tree got to the large house-turned-museum, he started acting more like himself. Which made Cipher three times as glad he had decided to let him back home. They still had to knock on the door.

Pine Tree himself knocked and Grunkle Stan answered, frowning at the presence of the Demon, but glad that his grand-nephew had shown up. "Hey, kid. What's the matter? You look a little lost."

Dipper smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, Grunkle Stan." The words sounded like plastic in his mouth—fake, and hard to say. "It's just… It's been a while."

Grunkle Stan got him into a headlock and rubbed his head with his fist. "It's been nice to see you after… you know… After the evil floating Dorito stole you away."

"Dorito"? What was a Dorito?

How did he not know this? What was wrong with him? They just threw it out so casually. What was a Dorito? No, really, what is this thing which is named a 'Dorito'?

"Come on in," Grunkle Stan grumbled. "I guess the evil Dorito can come inside, considering he's your so-called 'master' now."

Dipper glanced at the demon. "I guess."

Mabel was upstairs, in the attic, doing who knows what, and Soos was being "Fixin' It with Soos" again and Wendy… Wendy had the day off. Again.

Tumbling into the house, they sat in the living room, in awkward silence.


	6. Chapter 6

This chapter was super-duper long, but I had fun writing it! Tell me what you think!

Chapter 6—You Can't Do that in front of the Family

Stan started the conversation. "So, Dipper, how's it been?"

Dipper continued to play with his hands.

"Dipper?" Stan frowned. "Dipper?" He poked his great-nephew.

The boy poked his head up. "What was that?"

Stan's frown deepened. "Dorito, what did you do to him?"

Cipher frowned. "I have no idea what's wrong with him, but I didn't do it."

Stan didn't look like he believed him, his eyes half-lidded, his frown more of an annoyed line. "Right, Dorito. Because just being in your presence doesn't make people pis—"

"There are thirteen-year-old ears here, Pac-Man—"

"His name isn't Pac-Man," Dipper interrupted.

"And I'm sure he doesn't want to listen to you cuss!"

"I hear him cuss out the cops or some shoplifter every day. It's perfectly normal."

Dorito-Man and Pac-Boy stopped, looking down at the smallish boy.

Pac-Boy spoke first. "What did you say, Dipper?"

Dipper repeated what he said. The two men looked at each other, concern growing ever deeper. "Okay. What do you mean by that?"

Dipper looked up at the two of them, his eyebrows raised, looking like _what? Don't you understand?_ _Do you want me to repeat it?_ "I hear him say that every day," Dipper answered slowly. "Not terribly bad words, but he's not very happy with them. The cops are 'just annoying,' and shoplifters are 'thieving bags of fluff-air'."

Stan was completely surprised. Those are things he said right in front of Mabel the other day. What was with _Dipper_, though?

Mabel heard unusual silence downstairs. By this point, the Mystery Shack would be bustling, Stan giving the Tour, his guide-outfit perfectly uniform, his eye patch over which ever eye he wanted to pretend was cut out today, like he was some sort of land-pirate—she supposed he was, in a way-, laundering money and barely glancing away from the Law's Restrictions.

She should probably get up and get some sweeping done if it was already the time of day where people were sick of it. Tourist season never ended in the summer. It was Thursday, the second week of summer, and she was bored out of her head. She had already had Candy and Grenda over three times in the last four days, and she was getting desperate. She needed something to get her mind off her boredom… and off of the fact that she had kind of sold her brother's soul to an evil Mind-Eating demon last summer.

Her parents had been concerned about her mental state (of course they didn't _believe_ her, how insane do you think these people are? They raised Mabel. They might be a little crazy), and when Dipper hadn't come home, they had been worried. They called Grunkle Stan, who confirmed the story that he had ran away for some unknown reason. Her parents told her that she could never go back to Gravity Falls, Oregon, because they didn't want to risk loosing their poor little baby—the last baby they had—and they had went full speed ahead, filing a Missing Persons report. "Maybe it's a kidnapping," they'd exclaimed. "Maybe somebody stole our poor, precious Dipper!"

Mabel had tried calming them down, and went so far as to strike a deal with them. "If you stop freaking out, and I promise that I will cause as much a commotion as I can if I am ever kidnapped—not so far as to get myself killed, of course—but if I cause as much of a commotion as I can, then will you let me go back to Gravity Falls so I can at least _look_ for Dipper, evidence of where he may have gone?"

At least half of that disappeared into bouts of bawling, sobbing, and hugging, and they finally said yes, feeling that their Mabel should get the chance to see her Grunkle Stan as much as she wanted. A thirteen-year-old tweenager facing the world, trying and failing to make her parents realize that her brother had been sold to an evil demon. Heinous, vile, nasty, wicked, villainous, dreadful, shocking, scandalous, deprived, despicable… Triangle demon who ate people's minds.

She still had the journal, and looked through it occasionally, but she didn't mess with it. Sure, she saw the occasional creature—a fish-headed deer, a squash with a humanoid face and emotions, and a creepy spider that had black goo slide down its long, pencil-thin legs, it's midnight black eyes and dark grey eyes looking menacing over the giant hourglass on it's butt.

It had been terrifying at the time. She finally figured out that it was a black widow spider that had been magnified because of some mysterious green liquid that made things larger.

Maybe that's what made redwoods so freakishly tall.

Dipper had loved exploring the redwood forest. Those trees were so tall. She'd been more interested in giving the trees googly eyes and bright green hair made from pipe-cleaners and string. The Forest Ranger had been a little angry-screaming "Get away from that tree!" didn't help her much, since Mabel's only thought before that had been "George, George, watch out for that—"right when the FR said "that tree!" Mabel had spent five hours laughing about that while Dipper rolled his eyes and told her that "George" is a name that should never been given to monkeys, human or otherwise.

Grenda, Candy, and Mabel had managed to defeat the nasty spider with the help of Soos' plunger-gun device, something that created plungers and shot that with such force that it stuck to the thing and blasted them three miles away from where they original were. It had that much force. Soos is a really good handyman.

Hearing stairs creak, she looked over at the door of her attic room. The door was flung open, and a man dressed in a banana yellow suit, dapper midnight-black bowtie, top hat, gloves, and pants, blond hair sticking out from his head in some type of weirdly stylish bed-head fashion, was holding a boy in a blue-and-white trucker hat with a blue pine tree on it, a red shirt, blue vest, grey shorts, white tube socks, and grey-black shoes, shaking him up and down, screaming, "Help him, Mabel! Help him!" wildly. His eye-patch made him look vaguely familiar.

Her uncle refrained from acting so belligerent, hanging back at the door, leaning against the door frame, his arms folded, still in his wife-beater, fez, and shorts (were those the ones that had mysteriously caught on fire?), his facial expression not at all concerned about whatever was happening to his grand-nephew.

Mabel raised an eyebrow at the boy-shaking-man.

Dipper finally managed to weasel out of Cipher's grip, rubbing his arms and putting his hat back into place. Mabel got up from her bed and hugged the life out of Dipper's chest, making it hard for him to breathe. It was actually beginning to suffocate him.

"Mabel," he whispered his voice hoarse. "Mabel, let me go."

She squeezed him tighter and tighter and tighter, Dipper's face turning bright red all the while. When she finally let him go, his face was starting to turn purple. After taking several dozen deep breaths, his face slowly morphing back into a more peachy color.

"Bro-bro! I'm so glad to see you again!"

Dipper wheezed, his whole body shaking, he teetered back a little, but his feet fell forward and he regained his balance. "Yeah, Mabel. It's great to see you, too."

_At least, the right version of you._

_Not the Reverse-Pines or the Pinecest or the weak and cowardly version or the male version of you, or the evil demon version, the version where we've never lived… You're just the right version of you._

You get used to it after a while, Pine Tree.

Dipper cast a glance at Cipher, but he looked more concerned with Dipper's health than disassembling his mental state. He looked back at Mabel, slowly getting his breath back. He smiled, and she smiled back, looking happier than she ever had in months.

How did he know what she looked like?

How did he know about Stan cussing out the cops?

What was going on with him?

Suddenly teetering back again, he caught himself and flopped over on the bed.

Mabel looked over at the human that had brought him in the room. Looking him over, she frowned. "Bill Cipher."

The demon smiled sheepishly. "Hi, Mabel."

Mabel nearly smacked the demon, but Soos entered the room, wondering what all the commotion was. He saw Dipper lying on the bed and seismic-slammed into him giving him the biggest hug he'd given anyone (except for his mom).

"Dude! You came back from the depths of nothingness and despair alive! It's so nice to see you again!"

Getting hugged by Soos was like getting pressed between two metal compression plates, not as hard as Mabel, but almost as strong. Something cracked, and Dipper slipped a little into unconsciousness, but not all the way. Soos poked his face, and Dipper opened his eyes wide enough to see who it was.

A tinkle of the door and a familiar voice made Dipper get up and race down the stairs. "Wendy!"

Cipher was trapped upstairs with the three people he didn't want to be with. Pine Tree had left so suddenly it surprised him. _Wendy?_ That's who he was most concerned with?

Maybe he wasn't thinking straight because of how many bone-crushing hugs he'd gotten. With Question Mark's hug, he'd nearly passed out. They couldn't blame Bill. Dipper was the one that passed out, and Cipher didn't even have to do anything.

He looked at the three of them sheepishly. "Hey, guys."

"Hey, dude," Soos answered. "Why did you steal Dipper from us?"

"You mean Pine Tree? Shooting star over there sold his soul to me. To work for four years." He held up four fingers and put one down. "But it's almost been one year. He has three left."

Soos looked at Mabel. "You made sure to explain that Waddles has to live forever after you made this deal with him, right?"

Mabel nodded.

Cipher's shoulders drooped and he rolled his eye. "It happened, and yes, it was part of the agreement." He threw his hands behind his head, leaning back into it.

"Come on, floating Dorito—" Stan started.

"Will you please stop calling me that?"

"We all know that you wanted to kidnap Dipper for his journal."

Cipher rolled his eyes. "Mabel made a deal with me, okay? That's the only thing that happened."

"So what's wrong with Dipper, then?"

Mabel and Soos turned their heads and looked at Stan. "What do you mean, Grunkle Stan?" Mabel asked, her eyes wide, eyebrows drawn together.

Grunkle Stan didn't look at them. Keeping his eyes on the demon he said, "Ever since Dipper came home, he's talked to me about things that happened _before_ he got here or _after_ he got kidnapped by this monster."

Cipher tipped his top hat. "Thank you for making me feel better, Stanford. Maybe I should go talk to a certain Gideon Gleeful about where your mouth should go?"

"Don't talk when you don't know how to speak," Stan answered, glaring at him.

"Don't put your money where your mouth is, Pines," Cipher retorted. "It makes speaking with you so very boring."

"How about we stay in tonight, Grunkle Stan?" Mabel chirped. "It looks like it's going to rain tonight. Maybe that's why there aren't any tourists right now."

A very evident tinkle of the door interrupted the silence, and a lone tourist made his way inside. Wendy and Dipper started chatting inaudibly with the person.

Mabel smiled. "Okay, maybe that was a bad idea."

Cipher groaned. "I have to go where ever my _servant_ goes, to make sure that he doesn't do something stupid, so I have to stay here until he leaves."

_That isn't true, but they don't know that. Unless that stupid Pine Tree tells them._

_He won't. I'll make sure of it._

Lightning gave a great flash that lit up the already lit room, and Thunder followed a few seconds later, giving a mighty, bone-chilling roar. Another flash-explosion and a blood-chilling snarl dropped the lights, one in the hall even going so fair as to explode. Rain was a rock-slide intermingled with chunks of dynamite that did everything it could to take the roof apart. The spurts of thunder and lightning ignited the room and howled as if Fenrir had gotten out but he couldn't find his way around.

Grunkle Stan, Soos, Cipher, and Mabel (this sweatshirt was her typical shooting star one, no light bulbs) tumbled down the stairs, finding Dipper, Wendy, and the 'tourist' who was actually the pizza man, soaking wet, standing around, talking to each other.

Mabel looked at Cipher, her pulse racing. She looked over at Dipper, who was a little preoccupied with Wendy.

She needed to test it out on someone. How about Wendy and Pizza-Guy? She'd stop thinking about Robbie (or whoever she was currently thinking about), and Mabel could stop thinking about the incident with Tambry and Robbie.

She'd made her own mix of the stuff, and she'd discovered it worked. Now all she had to do was try it out first and then go full on. She just had to make sure that _they_ were in the right place and that it happened at the right time.

And that nobody figured out what happened. Or what was going to happen.

Cipher noticed Mabel boring holes into the back of his head, and he looked at her, confused. "Is there something else that you'd like to get pissed off about?"

She shook her head. "Nothing that you have to worry about, Cipher. I'm still not excited that you're here, or about the fact that you stole my brother's body."

"That was a deal, too," Cipher retorted. "He wanted help with the laptop's password and I wanted a puppet."

Mabel glowered at the demon. "So you took Dipper as a puppet." Something about having a demon inhabit her brother's body made her shutter. She wasn't sure if it was a good-reason shutter or some kind of twisted-obsession-shutter. But with what happened recently, she was fairly sure it was the latter, not the former.

The demon smiled at her. "You remember what happened."

_He probably thinks that I'm shivering from the idea. But I'm not._

The demon turned around and she gave his back her own twisted, devilish grin.

_The attic, midnight. No one will hear them, no one will see them._ Except me.

A shiver went down her spine, excited to the see the outcome of her test.

The pizza-man's car was stuck in the mud, and no one wanted to bother to try to get it out, so the man ate dinner with them. Trying to advertise the idea that it was just a normal family-get-together and not a reunion of a long-lost family member and his Demon Master, they insisted Cipher not float. Cipher had a hard time eating Triangle-shaped pizza, but he knew it was good, so he took a bite.

"Human bodies have to be maintained" was the only reason he'd eat anything triangular.

When they finished, they stood around the shop, Wendy at the counter, actually standing up, her elbow on the cash register her other hand in a fist, which her chin was resting on. She seemed interested in Pizza-Man, but Dipper still seemed interested in her.

Dang it, Dipper. Time to think of something to get Dipper away from Wendy.

Cipher was still in the other room, being interrogated by Grunkle Stan and Soos. This could work. Okay. Mabel tapped Dipper on the shoulder.

"Hey, Dip," she told him, face very straight. Matter-of-fact. A little annoyed. Acting being another great forte of hers. Dipper turned to face her.

"What do you want, Mabel? I'm in the middle of a conversation."

_Yeah, a conversation you don't like very much_, she told herself.

"Bill wants you for something."

A look of frustration and anger crossed Dipper's face, and was still on it by the time he left. Time for the Operation to begin. Wendy and Pizza-Man got back into their conversation, and Mabel snuck behind Pizza-Man and in front of Wendy (blocked by Pizza-Man). Quietly. Barely noticeable. Softly, she pulled out a bottle of pink-purple-blue dust, poured a bit out, and blew it in their faces.

They stopped their conversation for a little bit, looked at each other, then went into a make-out session behind the cash register.

Dipper was gone for a good fifteen minutes. Wendy and Pizza-Man's love-make-out fest was very… touchy-feely (not that Mabel was looking, that's just what it sounded like).

If _their's_ was like that… She shivered again. Twisted obsession, indeed.

When Dipper came back, he looked around for Wendy and Pizza-Man. Finding them behind the counter; he threw his arms up in front of him, his face in a look of disgust.

"Wendy!"

Wendy looked up from her place on the floor. "What?"

"What are you doing?"

"Making out with my boyfriend. That's what I'm doing."

"But… what?"

"Look, Dipper," she said solemnly, "we were never going to happen. Now it's me and Burt."

"Robert," Pizza-Man said from his spot hickeying her neck.

Dipper frowned. Turning, he trudged away.

"Hey, Dip!" Mabel yelped. "Where you going?"

"Bed," he answered simply.

_Oooo. This is working out better than I thought it would. Now I need to get Bill away from Grunkle Stan and Soos._

I have my ways.

She walked into the living room, and coughed. Loudly. (It was _still_ super-heavy rain).

They turned to look at her, and she frowned. "I need to talk with Cipher."

"Dude," Soos responded, "we aren't done talking to him yet."

"Dipper needs him for something."

Cipher rolled his eyes. _What could _Pine Tree_want right now?_

"Where is he?"

"In our room in the attic."

Cipher turned to the two men in his company. "I must go. My servant needs me."

Trailing Cipher quietly up the stairs, she followed up until the bedroom door, looking at Cipher's back grow smaller until he reached the edge of Dipper's bed. He knelt down at the sleeping tweenager and frowned.

"Blast it," Cipher muttered. Dipper's mouth was hanging open. Unable to resist, he leaned over and gave him a light, mouth-to-mouth kiss.

Mabel was surprised. She held the unopened bottle of Love Potion in her hands, remnants of the Love God predicament blended together into a rather powerful potion. "Love of country music" wasn't in there. Just 'crush,' "impenetrable love," "intense love," and sprinkles of "deranged love" mixed it. (Tiny "deranged love" sprinkles. Less than .0001 grams of the stuff—crush took up most of the room, though there was wiggle room for "more than a crush".)

When Dipper's mouth clamped down on Bill's, both Bill and Mabel were surprised. Bill pulled himself away, and pressed his lips against Dipper's neck, dragging him down to the floor.

Dipper's arms drooped and he leaned into the hickey.

He pulled away, and whispered into Bill's ear, "Tell no one."


	7. Chapter 7

Warning: Gets kind of violent at the end. (Not bloody, just violent. Be warned. Proceed with caution. Etc. Plus, please enjoy! I guess…)

Chapter Seven—

Cipher was curled up next to the boy like a cat, fitting into the boy's body like a hand in a glove. Mabel hadn't been too happy that he'd stayed in the room all night—she'd had a hard time falling asleep for fear of him tearing her mind apart—but she'd finally fell asleep. Resting on the bed for several hours, needing the hindrance of sleep, seeing as he wanted to keep his human body, he'd woken up several hours before Dipper. That boy needed more sleep than any cat could, but he woke up before six-thirty, awfully surprised that his master was sleeping in bed with him. Dipper had been hiding under the covers whilst Cipher had been lying on top of them.

Cipher had, after all, put the bed-clothes on him.

And changed his clothes, but that's beside the point.

He'd been in an alternate dimension where little human-boy Dipper had been a soul-sucking manly demon, making deals left and right. He was slowly growing into the part, but he wasn't going to last long in that department. He was going to turn back into his normal boyish self soon enough.

Cipher had, after all, cut poor Dipper's servitude in half. If he acted up today—why today? What about tomorrow? Why did he feel so great about _today_?

If he acted up today, Cipher was tacking on a few extra _thousand_ years.

Mmm… maybe less than that.

A few decades or so, just to see what happens to the boy. Cipher smiled. _That is, of course, a rather big _"IF."

When Dipper woke up, he was taken completely by surprise. There was a man, wrapped in yellow and black, lounging in front of him, his face mere inches in front of his. Dipper scrabbled backward, his mind back to how it originally was before it left on a journey of darkness and unbearable, impossible "endurance." He wasn't used to seeing Bill. He was used to his presence, but his mind couldn't make sense of what was going on. _Why are you here? What are you doing? What do you want?_

Cipher smiled, grabbing Dipper's arm before he could make it completely off the bed.

"What's wrong, Pine Tree?" An edge of irritation crept into the man's voice, rather confused about the boy's reaction compared to the night last.

Dipper responded shakily. "W—wh—why are you in my bed?"

Bill's face contorted for a moment, his face twisting in a violent frown, his eyebrows furrowing. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said," Dipper answered, his voice gaining little strength in the comment.

"You mean you don't remember?" Cipher's voice was bloodcurdlingly hushed. His mouth curled into an eerie smile, much like the Grinch's, on the last word. Dipper's skin erupted into goose bumps, and even Bill would feel them through his glove. Pulling Dipper close, flirting with his mouth, Cipher gave a tight-lipped smile. "You don't remember _anything_?"

"About last night?" Dipper squeaked. "No. Nothing at all. Why?"

Cipher frowned, his half-lidded eyes looking lustily at Dipper's mouth.

_Stop it, you sick bastard. Now is no time for this._

Mabel quickly intervened, gripping her brother by the back of his night shirt and ripping him from Cipher's grasp, making Dipper cry out and Cipher look at Dipper in confusion. The bed creaked as Dipper fell off, and the house groaned. It was old, but it wasn't falling apart… completely. Dipper looked up at his sister, who was glaring intensely at the demon on her brother's bed.

Cipher's face contorted in confusion. Had the whole thing been a dream? What was going on? _He didn't __**have**__ dreams._ Demons can't have **dreams**, it's impossible.

_This must be some kind of twisted nightmare,_ Cipher thought.

"Why are you here and what do you want?"

Cipher's mind reeled. _Do they not know? I'm his _master! _I…What?_

What was going on with his head? Everything was distorted and wrong… He wasn't his master. Had he dreamed that he and Dipper had the make-out session last night? Was he his friend, his enemy, his… his… frienemy?

_Time to ditch the human meatball. He's been _messing with your head the **whole time.**

Ripping himself out of the meat suit, the triangular demon grabbed Dipper's arm. No longer having a mouth, his voice seemed to float out of nowhere. "_I am your master and we are leaving."_

Teleporting without the vile pink twin, Cipher transported them to the darkest, dimmest, bleakest, most pathetic planet in an alternate dimension he could think of Plasma-Alter Unit 1. The planet's surface had no life, was completely barren, thirteen-hundred billion light-years away from a sun, and had no oxygen on it whatsoever.

It was a miracle Dipper survived.

Still a freakishly angry demonic triangle, now pitch black with pulsing crimson red veins popping out of his energized body, he gripped Dipper's neck, breaking off his air supply… not that there was any air to supply him with. Dipper's face turned an incredible white, paler than any ghost or sheet. His voice bounced off everything in the barren landscape, making it sound like a thousand Bills were speaking at once. Dipper didn't have enough strength to even try to tear at Cipher's hands.

"**I am your master, am I not?**"

Dipper couldn't nod, he couldn't think, he couldn't even breathe.

"**And you are supposed to obey** **me, aren't you**?"

Clenching his fist so tightly it was going to leave a permanent mark, he leaned closer to his servant. "**Do you understand**?"

Dipper slipped into some type of near-death, and Cipher would have clenched teeth, were there teeth to clench—he would have broken something and started bleeding—and hurled Dipper's body to the ground and watched it crumple in the dark grey, almost black dust of the dead planet—a planet Cipher had destroyed.

His arms by his sides in absolute, disgusted, unadulterated rage, his normally yellow tone stained black by his anger, mixed with confusion due to the _hilarious dream_ his "body" had conjured up the night before, he grabbed his servant from his place three-hundred feet in the "sky", his black arm extending down to the broken "earth," he whipped his servant all over the broken planet's surface until he was sure the boy was dead.

_The girl never said I couldn't return her brother dead._

Actually, that's a big fat lie.

She said you had to return him alive and well, normal…

_As normal as a human being getting taught demonic rituals can get in this job, anyway._

If the demon could grit his teeth, he would have. _Time to bring this stupid kid back to life and make sure he—or I—have anymore memory mishaps._

Maybe you should get him back to Earth so he can breathe.

I thought I had put this in here already, but apparently I hadn't, so if this looks familiar, gimme a ring (message me or something) and tell me. Hope you liked. Tell me what you think of the story thus far.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight—Breaking Dipper's Mind

Pacing around the dark room, Cipher stared intently at the floor. His servant, stripped of his typical clothing, had his midnight-black suit back. His legs were pretzel-crossed, his eyes staring worriedly at his master. The floating triangle could _feel_ the worry and anxiety radiating off the boy. _Serves him right, _the demon scolded. It had been two days since Cipher had squeezed the life out of the boy, and now he was back to his living breathing self. He had to kill a few squirrels to make _it_ work. The _pig_ on the other hand had required a slightly… _larger_ animal. Cipher glanced angrily at Pine Tree, who immediately looked down at his hands.

"What are we going to do today?" Pine Tree asked, breaking the tense atmosphere. If anything, the break just made the whole ordeal even _more_ awkward.

_I hate this kid. If there was any universe where I loved him and we were lovers, I'd _rip it apart and throw it into a black hole.

_That's a little harsh. Don't go ripping anybody into pieces._

Pine Tree's face was pale; his blood shoot eyes shiny with having to stay up all night and from the violent scolding Cipher had given him. Pine Tree wrung his hands together, trying desperately to get the filthy knot out of his stomach, but nothing was working. A tug in Cipher's stomach made him want to poke into the boy's brain, but the only way to do that was to get the boy to fall asleep. Which wasn't a problem so far as he was concerned.

But Bill was going to keep Pine Tree awake for the next hour or so. He still had to finish his "extensive" training (Bill was just dragging out for as long as possible, and it was working), just sitting there, trying not to fall asleep for as long as possible. The actual lesson took five minutes, but Bill had dragged it out until midnight, sweeping up the cold wind of the outside world and dumping it on Dipper.

_Pine Tree,_ Bill scolded himself. _He doesn't deserve to be _named_when he just did something so stupid, so rotten…_

What did he even do that got him so riled up? All he'd done was gotten confused about the night before. Maybe he'd been drugged, too. And then there was Mabel. That lying disaster that blew through everywhere, her 'creative juices' or 'genius' or whatever the heck she called it, kicking Cipher's plans in the butt. Most of the time Dipper came to her rescue, all by using that stupid journal. Gideon Gleeful—that little compressed metric ton of complete and total idiocy—didn't know who or what he was dealing with. Sure, Gleeful was clever and snide, but _Dipper._ Cipher laughed. _Dipper_ could be worse than Stanford and Gideon mixed together in a bowl full of mush with a bunch of tush, slush, and sargush.

Cipher shook his head. Whatever had drugged his human body last night still had the side effects, and it was affecting his brain. _Hopefully she didn't give me any hallucinogenic crap_, Cipher groaned inwardly. Frowning again, Cipher said to himself, _why bother Pine Tree with all this ritualistic garbage? _Cipher paused. _He doesn't know what happened last night and neither do I. Maybe if I ask Shooting Star about this little… mishap, I'll tell her I'll let Pine Tree go sooner if she tells the truth._

_But what if she doesn't know either?_

_Question that stupid man and that… Question mark. _

Cipher had his back turned on Pine Tree, and when he heard snoring, he turned around and smacked Dipper on the back of the head.

Mabel felt awful when she woke up the next morning. Dipper had been kidnapped by the evil triangle, and she had no idea where they had gone. Maybe they'd gone to Mars. To the Moon. Was it possible for Cipher to go to other planets? He was a Dreamscape demon, his sole region of dominance in the dream world. Unless he had power outside of that.

Was he really a Dreamscape demon, or was he something much worse?

It was possible. The journal didn't really _say_ what type of demon he was, just that he had excellent taste in clothes, and that he was really nice freakishly evil. Or something like that.

Mabel sighed, and dragged herself out of bed. Putting on her typical uniform, she walked sluggishly down the stairs. Finding Waddles down there, she smiled. She heard something frying in the kitchen, and held up her noise to breath in the glorious smell of… pan cakes.

And bacon. _Bacon?_

She charged down the stairs, slamming the kitchen door open. "What are you doing?" She screamed at the chef. "Why are you cooking bacon?!"

Soos glanced over at her and nodded his head. "'Guess the bacon finally woke you up."

Mabel's rage didn't subside. "Why are you cooking _bacon?_ There is a pig present!"

Soos' hand slipped and he dropped a piece of bacon on the floor. Waddles promptly picked it up in his mouth and ate it.

Mabel stared, horrified.

The walls turned grey, and the once-colorful world outside went grayscale. Bill Cipher's eye opened up, and then the rest of his triangular body appeared, some creepier, much deadlier version of the Cheshire Cat.

"Hello, Shooting Star," Bill said, then turning to Soos, "and Question Mark."

Stan burst in, wearing a wife-beater, sweats, and his fez. "What's going—" he saw Cipher and his face straightened. "Oh."

Bill glanced at Stan. "Nice to see you, too," he retorted, folding his arms. "P… Pac-Man-fish thing."

Stan raised a confused eyebrow. "What?"

"The symbol on your fez, it's like Pac-Man mixed with a fish or something." Bill shrugged. "What else am I supposed to call it?"

"What do you want, Cipher?" Mabel yelped.

Cipher laughed. "I want to know what happened last night," his eye slowly turning blood red. Mabel shivered.

"You think we know what happened? I was practically drugged!"

"'Drugged'? You drugged me and Pine Tree into… into…"

"Making out?" Question Mark offered. Soos offered.

"Don't you say that!" Cipher screamed. "Don't you _dare_ say that."

Soos put his hand up and stage whispered to Mabel, "So it did happen."

Cipher put his hands on his triangular 'head' and screamed. "It did _not happen!"_

Pac-Man-Fish-Thing frowned. "So that means that it did?" he deadpanned.

"Look, you insane, monstrous people—"

"Yeah, we're such monsters," Stan clipped in. "Making bacon and all."

Cipher snapped his fingers and Stan turned into a rat. Duct-taped to the wall. "Who else wants to cross me right now?" Cipher yelped. Soos and Mabel raised their arms in the please-don't-shoot-me-I-don't-feel-like-dying-right-now pose.

"What happens if we do?" Soos asked, an innocent question.

"You'll end up like him!" Cipher cried, pointing menacingly, albeit slightly, at Stan the Rat. Cipher sighed, letting the heat out of himself like a slowly deflating balloon.

_That couldn't have gotten _any worse, _could it?_ Mabel asked herself.

"Now," Cipher said, now more composed than he was earlier, "what happened last night?"

Soos shrugged. "I don't know. A golf game between San Francisco and Tokyo?"

Cipher, if he could frown in that state, did so. Disapprovingly. "Golf? Now is _no time for golf_!" He slammed his hand down and broke the oven, accidently hitting the pan, which sent bacon flying onto his face. Soos and Mabel started laughing. _Great. Everything I could need right now. _

Cipher took the bacon off his face and let it drop back onto the floor.

"You're not going to tell me?" he spat. "Hope you can clean up Dipper's brain after he decides to kill himself!" Cipher disappeared, his laughter echoing after him, the grayscale atmosphere slowly fading back into a fiery red.

Mabel screamed and dropped to the floor. Soos caught her, and let her cry on his shoulder while Ratly Stan sat duct-taped to the wall thinking, _I wonder how cheese tastes with poison ivy?_


	9. Chapter 9-- I'm So Sorry

Chapter Nine—I'm So Sorry

Mabel looked up from her cards- two threes, one jack, and one king. She looked up at Candy and Grenda, smiling, and laying down the jack and the king. "Ha!" she yelped. "I win!"

Candy and Grenda clapped politely while Mable continued to do her victory dance.

Dipper burst into the room, breathing rapidly, covered in leaves, moss, and… water. Thick water. Mabel shrugged it off. Dipper had his trade-mark blue pine tree hat on, his blue vest, gray shoes, and red t-shirt on, except the shirt had some holes in it, and the hat was turned to the side like he was trying to be the next top-hit rap artist.

Mabel smiled. "Wazzup, D-R- Per?" she asked, index fingers pointing out, crossing her arms.

Dipper raced back to the door, barely looking at his sister. "Sorry, Mabel, gotta go, real busy. I think I found something out in the forest that the book talks about, and I want to make sure I get a picture of it."

Mabel stopped him before he had time to close the door. "You don't have your camera."

Dipper looked down at his hand. "Oh," he answered, laughing slightly, "yeah, it looks like I don't." He opened the door and looked around, just waiting to jackrabbit from the attic room. "Where is it? Where'd I put that thing?"

"Maybe it's in your suit case?" Grenda suggested.

"Or on your night stand," Candy offered.

"You only have one night stand?" Grenda retorted, her straight face breaking completely after a few seconds.

Candy laughed. "One night stand. I get it!"

Mabel gave a little smile. "Yeah, guys…" she looked over at Dipper, who was still in frantic mode. If he didn't get his camera soon, he was going to flip out. "It's under your bed, Dipper."

Dipper looked back at her. "Where, did you say?"

"Under your bed…" Her head started to hurt. "What…?"

She looked at the figure standing up in front of her. It was all fuzzy, his… was it a 'he'? Its features mangled like a superimposed photograph.

Mabel blinked. "It's… the… what?"

The indistinguishable shape looked like it was saying something but the words came out jumbled and cut off. "I'm… my… where… have… it?"

"What?" Mabel shouted at the thing, the shape's voice growing louder and louder until it was a ringing noise, some kind of obnoxious white noise.

Mabel frowned and threw her cards at it. "Get out! You're bugging me!"

The figure jumped back in surprise. Its shape suddenly drew back together, but it didn't have a face. It was just… blank. No nose, no eyes, no mouth, no freckles, scars, wrinkle spots, sores, band-aids, stitches, tattoos, nothing. The clothes were the same, but the colors were mismatched. The shoes were blue; the vest was red, the shirt blue, the pine tree black, and the rest of the hat a deep brown color. The thing put its hands up to its face, touching it gently only to rip its hand back and freeze in terror, not knowing what happened to its face.

"Get away, you no-faced monster!" Mabel threw Grenda and Candy's cards at the monster. They didn't react at all, pretending to still play with invisible cards.

"I won this time!" Candy raised her hands in a shout. "I win! I win! I win!"

The monster with no face put its hands up to protect itself from the cards, and shrank back to the wall, staring in sheer terror at its hands.

"Get out of here! Get out of here _right now!_" Mabel screamed at it, grabbing a random book off the floor—it had a golden hand on it; where had that come from? Must be Grunkle Stan's- and hit the thing on the head.

The creature shrank back, and raced off, through the window, landing on the ground outside and running into the forest. Mabel's mind went black, and then next thing she knew she was in her bed.

She sat up and screamed, "Get out! Get out!" still thinking the monster was there.

Soos rushed up the stairs and threw open the door. "What's wrong, dudes?"

Mabel looked up at the broken window and threw her head into her hands. "What's wrong with me?" she cried, bawling. "What's… wrong… with me?" Huffing and trying to breathe, she let Soos wrap his large pillow-y arms around her, and telling her it would be OK.

"But what if it's not OK, Soos? What if Butcher—"

"Dipper," Soos interrupted.

Mabel started crying again. "What if Dip-Dip never comes back?"

_Squeak squeak._

Mabel looked up at the door, and through her tears she saw Stan pretending (_still_) to be a rat. Mable pawed at Soos' arms again, wanting him to hug her more, which he obliged. She sobbed into his shirt, and Rat-Man Stan sniffed them, wrinkled his nose, and scampered out the attic's door. After a good twenty minutes of pure crying and pat-on-the-back consoling, Mabel finally pulled Soos away and wiped her tears away.

A thunderous _crack_ interrupted the tender moment between the two friends, and Soos sniffed the air. "What did he just break?" he questioned.

Mabel followed suit, raising her nose to the air. "I think he broke the toilet."

Soos looked down at the girl. "I think you're right. We should go make sure he doesn't break anything else."

The two headed down stairs, Mabel in a super-size dark blue knit sweater with a black cat with bright yellow eyes on it, the hem reaching her knees, the arms reaching down to the floor, Soos in his usual green question mark shirt and khaki shorts and sneakers and Mystery Shack hat. Soos snuck down the stairs and turned his head around the corner just in time to see stars.

Mabel peeked her head out a little bit and saw Rat-Man Stan jumping on the couch, his mouth foaming, glasses and fez hanging off the old man's head precariously. His usual suit was had gotten ripped to shreds, and instead of normal human ears he had mouse ears and the beady eyes of—didn't he already have beady eyes?— a rat.

Well, he already was a rat, so his Ratiness was lesser of a concern than him actually _becoming _a Sir Mister Rat-Man. But his literal becoming a rat was a little scarier than him _being_—metaphorically—a rat.

"I thought Grunkle Stan already _was_ a rat!" Mabel yelped.

Soos shrugged, still trying to make out the fuzzy stars circling his face. "I don't think that's a Stan…"

"No, Soos," Mabel told him, pulling his head toward the raving-mad Stan, "that Stan."

"No, Mabel, that's a Soos."

Mabel cocked her head. "What?"

Soos pointed at himself. "That's a Soos."

Mabel shook her head, confused. "No, Soos, the thing on the couch acting like a crazy—"

Stan's suit ripped down the middle and gray-white fur burst out of his skin, making the Rat-Man scream in pain.

Mabel stared in horror. "OK, Soos, it's time for the nice evil Grunkle Rat-Man to leave the premises."

"What do rat-men like?" Soos muttered, albeit a smidge incoherently.

"Mice like cheese, right?" Mabel said to him, having to hold his head up because it was falling over because he was falling asleep. "Right?"

"No, they like seeds and veggies and stuff.."

Sorry this is so super short! I'll write a longer one, cross my heart and seriously don't feel like dying right now (sorry, those of you who hate me). Tell me what you think!

Btw, what do you think of Rat-Man Stan? (Is it too much or what?)


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